[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

He'd speak to you, if you would."
"Count Thraxton?" Joseph said. "What does want?"
he
"I'm sure I don't know, sir," the sentry answered. "Will you see him, or shall
I send him away?"
"I'll see him." Joseph had no more desire to see Thraxton than he did some
demon from one of the seven hells. As a matter of fact, there had been times
during the war when he'd wondered if the Braggart was a demon from one of the
Page 127
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
seven hells. But he couldn't send the man away, not when Thraxton served as
King Geoffrey's eyes and ears in Peachtree Province.
"Count Thraxton!" the sentry announced in a loud voice, holding open the
farmhouse door.
"Your Grace," Joseph the Gamecock murmured, bowing to the general who'd
commanded the Army of Franklin before him.
"
Your
Grace," Thraxton the Braggart replied, returning the bow. Thraxton was tall
and lean and sallow, with a face as mournful as a bloodhound's though much
bonier. A
grizzled beard covered hollow cheeks; sad eyes peered out from beneath a
bramble patch of eyebrows. If he'd ever been happy in all his days, he hadn't
bothered telling his face about it.
Joseph waved him to a chair. "Sit down, your Grace, please." He didn't like
having
Thraxton looming over him like a bad omen. The Braggart folded up, one section
at a time, as he sat. Joseph stayed on his feet, pacing back and forth as he
asked, "What can I
do for you today, General?"
"I have come to tell you, sir, that King Geoffrey is not pleased with your
plan to man the forts around Marthasville with Satrap Brown's militiamen and
to move the Army of
Franklin away from the city," Thraxton replied.
"I'm sorry to hear that," Joseph the Gamecock said. "Why does he object to
it?"
"His Majesty's view, if I may speak frankly . . ." Thraxton waited for Joseph
to nod.
Joseph refused to give him the satisfaction. Thraxton coughed a couple of
times wet, almost consumptive coughs and went on, "His Majesty is concerned
that you intend to retreat away from Marthasville, and to leave the place
undefended against the southrons.
That is insupportable, both politically and militarily."
"In the first place, he's wrong, and, in the second place, he's wrong," Joseph
said. "If
I put my own men in the forts, how can I possibly hope to attack the
southrons? With my own force and nothing more, I can defend but I can't hope
to attack."
"King Geoffrey is less certain of this than you are," Thraxton declared.
"Well, bully for him," Joseph said acidly. "I'm here, and he's over in bloody
Nonesuch. Which of us is likely to know better what this army is good for and
what it isn't, do you suppose?"
"His Majesty has other sources of information besides yourself." Thraxton's
tone was opaque, oracular.
Someone's been telling tales out of school
, was what the Braggart had to mean. As soon as the words were out of
Thraxton's mouth, Joseph the Gamecock could make a pretty good guess who that
someone was, too. "Gods damn Lieutenant General Bell to the nastiest hell
there is," he growled.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Count Thraxton said, which was a
lie, and a lie made all the more annoying because it was so obvious.
"Oh, I'll just bet you don't," Joseph said.
Thraxton's narrow shoulders went up and down in a shrug. He had to be dead to
shame he didn't even care if he got caught out. "It's beside the point, in any
case," he said. "Here the point: will you take his Majesty's advice on how
to defend Marthasville, is or will you not?"
"Did he set me over the Army of Franklin, or is he in command of it himself?"
Joseph asked.
Page 128
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
"You command the army," Thraxton the Braggart answered, and a twist of his
thin lips showed how much he wished he still commanded it himself. "You
command the army, but Geoffrey rules the kingdom."
"Fine," Joseph the Gamecock said. "Let him rule the kingdom, then, and I
promise not to tell him how to do it so long as he doesn't tell me how to
command the army.
Seems a fair enough bargain to me."
Count Thraxton's lips got even thinner and even paler. Joseph hadn't thought
they could. "I doubt King Geoffrey will care for the joke, your Grace,"
Thraxton said in frigid tones.
"I wasn't joking," Joseph said.
"What a pity," Count Thraxton replied.
* * *
Lieutenant General Bell had just taken a long, grateful gulp of laudanum when
his aide-de-camp stuck his head into his farmhouse headquarters. Bell was
anything but glad to see Major Zibeon. He'd gone too long without the drug
since his quarrel with Joseph the Gamecock; his nerves were jangling, not only
from the agony of his wounds but from craving for the potent tonic that salved
him. His voice had a bark in it as he demanded, "What now?"
"Sir, Count Thraxton would speak with you," Zibeon replied.
"Thraxton?" Bell said, and the junior officer nodded. Part of Bell wished he'd
waited a little longer to take the laudanum. If he was going to talk with King
Geoffrey's friend
to say nothing of the king's snoop here in Peachtree Province he should have
had wits as clear as he could make them. But no help for that now. Clear wits
or not, he had to see
Thraxton. "Send him in."
"Good day, Lieutenant General," Thraxton said, his tone and expression
suggesting that all good days were no more than figments of other men's
imaginations. "I have just come from speaking with Count Joseph." His voice
got even chillier, no mean feat.
"Good day, your Grace," Bell said. "Is he ever going to use this army of ours,
or is he just going to keep running with it?"
"Ah." Thraxton leaned forward markedly. "So you would fight the southrons,
then, if the Army of Franklin were in your hands?"
"I sure would, sir." Bell's wits were clear enough to leave him with no doubts
on that score. "We could whip those sons of bitches, if the men only had the
chance to do it."
"You think so, do you?" Thraxton said.
"Sir, I'm sure of it," Bell replied.
"This is what I had hoped to hear from Joseph the Gamecock," Thraxton the
Braggart said. "It is what King Geoffrey has been hoping to hear from Joseph
through this whole campaign. He has not heard it. I did not hear it. That
being so, I am authorized to remove Count Joseph from his command here."
"And?" Bell could say no more than that, and even the one word came out as a
breathy whisper.
"And," Thraxton continued sourly, "to offer the said command to you,
Lieutenant
General, should you prove willing to accept it."
For a moment, Bell thought the laudanum had taken effect all at once, instead
of gradually as it usually did. Then he realized joy could bring a feeling as
intense as distillate of poppy juice. "Your Grace," he said, "you and his
Majesty honor me far beyond my deserts."
"We had better not," Count Thraxton answered. "The kingdom needs you to go
forward and beat the southrons. We cannot afford delay we have had altogether
too much of delay and we cannot afford defeat."
"You may rely on me and on my brave men, sir," Bell said.
Page 129
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
"I do, Lieutenant General. The kingdom does," Thraxton the Braggart replied.
"It is late in the day, I know, to make this change, but King Geoffrey decided
it must be made.
He sends you his wishes for good fortune, and for a fresh start in driving the
noxious foe from our soil."
When he said fresh start
, he hesitated as if the words tasted bad. And, when he said them, Bell saw
why he himself had the command and Thraxton did not. Thraxton had already
failed with the Army of Franklin. He'd proved he did not have good fortune.
Maybe Bell would show he did.
"For the kingdom, sir, I will go forward," Bell declared. "Have you yet told
Joseph the Gamecock he is removed?"
Thraxton shook his head. "I have not. I wanted to be certain you would accept
the command before announcing the change."
"I am glad to accept, proud to accept," Bell said. "Truly, this is a great [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]